Jewelry has traditionally had lockets or closed compartments in which special photographs, images or keepsakes are maintained. Such compartments are generally integrally formed within the jewelry which is often worn as a pendant or necklace with mechanical structure allowing doors, gates or windows to be open to access the photos or allow retrieval of material stored within the compartments.
The photo or photos stored in such personal lockets worn by people do not change. It can only be viewed by a person in physical proximity to the locket and there is a limited ability to change the photo(s). Indeed, when photos are changed, old photos are often discarded and replaced with new ones. The ability to update, store or otherwise provide a significant amount of photos or other desirable viewable content is unavailable with current jewelry structures.
Modern technology has developed near field communication (NFC) chips which include a set of protocols enabling smartphones and other devices to establish radio communication with each other by touching the devices together or bringing them into proximity to a distance of typically four inches or less, as currently designed. Currently, such devices are made of non-conductive material, and the NFC chip is snugly held in place within the device to minimize wasted space.
NFC employs electromagnetic induction between two loop antenna to exchange information between the devices. Data in NFC tags typically are read only, but some also are rewritable. The material in which such NFC chips are snugly held is non-conductive, such as plastic or composite materials.
An object of this invention is to provide decorative jewelry housing keepsake items where the keepsake items are easily viewable, susceptible to change and storage and retrieval of a large amount of viewable content, such as images, videos, data or the like.
Another object of this invention is to provide such a jewelry item which is made of precious metal, such as gold or silver, which holds an NFC chip without significantly impairing the radio frequency (RF) transmission of the NFC chip.
Yet another object of this invention is to provide a metal structure having a compartment within which an NFC chip may be fixed in place, yet be able to use the metal structure with the NFC chip with smart phones and the like.
Other objects, advantages and features of this invention will become more apparent from the following description.